Federal Writers' Project – Life Histories/2020/Fall/105/Section068/Ned Davis

Early Life

Ned Davis was born on August 13, 1897 in DeRamus County South Carolina, he was the only child to live past the age of two and his mother died when he was three. His father was a poor sharecropper and Ned spent most of his early life under the care of his grandmother. When his father later re-married, Ned went to school through the third grade and had fond memories of going to the woods to dig up special roots for hair with his stepmother. Unlike the absent relationship with his father, Ned and his stepmother developed a meaningful relationship with one another. She was the one who encouraged Ned to go to school to get his education and let him in on special family secrets such as the root they collected together for fantastic hair. This marriage was unfortunately very brief, and Ned was soon alone again. Like his father, Ned decided to begin sharecropping. During this time many Southern African American workers held sharecropping jobs which paid very little and allowed no economic mobility to the poor workers (Gaido 2000). These practices were employed to keep the poor from gaining any wealth. Along with the work being difficult, Ned knew that he was going to end up like his father if he continued down that road, so he quit.

Beginning work

After deciding against sharecropping, he began to take on a variety of jobs. Ned always made it a point to be a good an honest worker and did not want anyone to ever slander his name. His first jobs included watching children, farming, cooking, bell hopping, and driving. It was while he was working that Ned met his first wife Ila May, and she introduced him to the Church. The African American Church provided many resources to these marginalized individuals and helped to support their underrepresented population, as well as giving the community a safe space to discuss their own oppression from living in the Jim Crow South (Blank et al. 2002). This had a very large impact on his life because Ned was taught compassion, the importance of helping other people, and how to empower the Black community he was a part of. After Ned and Ila May were married, they moved to West Virginia and had their first and only child. Illa May had always dreamed of working in beauty, and even took a class in it before she became very sick. Her condition worsened and soon after the birth of their first child, Illa May passed away After losing his first wife, 6 weeks later Ned married his second wife Mabel Langford and they moved to Rivertown. Inspired by his late wife’s love of beauty and his stepmother's secret root for hair growth, Ned decided to start his own business. At this time Ned was working as a bellhop in a local hotel, but he saved every penny he could to put towards his business. He applied for a patent and slowly began to sell his product, even working illegally selling whiskey between hotels to make extra money. Due to the depression, it was very difficult for Ned to find extra work during this time. In fact, African Americans had unemployment rates that were two or three times as high as White people (Lynch 2018). Despite this Ned worked very hard to make this dream happen, the family was very poor, but he always managed to find extra work and sometimes had enough to put into savings. This demonstrates Ned’s drive to no longer be poor and make a better life for him and his family.

The Caravan Salon

He opened up his salon with the help of his wife, it was slow at first, but Ned was innovative. Inspired by the gypsy caravans and their long hair that he remembered seeing in his youth, Ned opened up the Caravan Salon. Ned wanted his Salon to cater to the African American community, he believed that beauty could boost the confidence level of an individual and make them do great things. Soon business was booming, even converting it into one of the first African American beauty schools to be approved by the State and one of the first to receive a certificate by the State. He later decided that beauty school interfered with his faith and was too vain. Remembering his late wife Illa May, Ned wanted to better serve the black community. He decided to close the school and open up a place called The Servants Clinic. This clinic offered services that will help working-class African Americans to become more qualified for their jobs and assist in networking. Ned thinks of The Servants Clinic as a contribution to his people because he is able to provide African Americans services similar to what the church provided him, by encouraging them and giving others the tools they need to be independent. Ned later moved to Mecklenburg County where in 1933 he was appointed Notary Public. While he decided to stay out of politics, he believed that the African American community needed to continue to vote.

Bibliography

Blank, Michael B., Marcus Mahmood, Jeanne C. Fox, and Thomas Guterbock. 2002. “Alternative Mental Health Services: The Role of the Black Church in the South.” American Journal of Public Health 92 (10): 1668–72.https://doi.org/10.2105/ajph.92.10.1668.

Gaido, Daniel. 2000. “A Materialist Analysis of Slavery and Sharecropping in the Southern United States.” Journal of Peasant Studies 28 (1): 55–94. https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150008438758.

Lynch, Hollis. 2018. “African Americans - African American Life during the Great Depression and the New Deal.” In Encyclopedia Britannica.https://www.britannica.com/topic/African-American/African-American-life-during-the-Great-Depression-and-the-New-Deal.